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‘Tis the Season

December's theme is ‘Tis the Season", a great opportunity to review the Holidays.

The catch? We're only supposed to use five pictures. FIVE!! I'll try...Let me start with a three in one combo. This pictures represent

Our Elf on the Shelf - her name is Cookie - she has been visiting us for the fifth time this season, and we always enjoy the surprising places she spends her days watching us.

The countdown till Christmas, aka Advent Calendar. This year we decorated little cardboard houses and set them up as a winter wonderland village. As the houses were tiny they could only fit in a toy car or a chocolate candy, I put in a note with a clue on where to find larger surprises like new PJs or a book.

Samichlaus weekend is being celebrated on the first weekend of December around here. Samichlaus is like a cousin of Santa's. Read more about him and our tradition here. We usually meet Samichlaus, Schmutzli and their donkeys in the forest, and the next day we say hello to the Harley Santa's in the city.

Technically this is not my own picture of course. My Mom took it. 💖

It's easy to get lost in busyness in December. That's why it's important to stop and smell the coffee. I got to enjoy an hour of ultimate freedom blogging at this wonderfully decorated Starbucks while Colin was having a fun playdate at his hockey buddy's house.

No December without some extra shopping. This is the grocery department at Globus, comparable to Nordstrom or Macy's. I always admire their display of fresh produce, bread and cheese, even their seafood looks pretty! On the other side of the wine department there is a wine bar, and usually it's pretty empty. The other day we were there "after hours" and boy, was it crowded!

Another year we were hoping for a White Christmas in vain. That's where the cotton "snow" balls came in! On Christmas Eve we had a nice dinner with our parents, all the gifts got unwrapped. All but one. I produced this crate full of snowballs. We blew out the candles, secured delicate decoration items and the wine glasses and had a wild snowball fight in our living room!

As every year I am feeling a bit depleted. I put so much care and energy intp preparing for a wonderful Christmas, and after a couple of hours, boom, it's over! Well, I left everything up for today's New Year's Eve party. Which is starting in less than two hours here.Thank you for being part of my blogging journey in 2016 - hope to see you again next year! If you'd like to do me a favour head over to my Facebook page and give me a like - much appreciated, thank you!

Even then, it'd probably be super hard to choose the most awesome one! Did I tell you that I love fireworks? I love them even better when they include the following: they are being displayed near a body of waterthey are being displayed near some nice scenerythere is some music going along with it For that reason, Sydney, Australia is definitely one that I'd consider one of the most awesome ones.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France is also a great place for a fireworks / music show!

Last month I signed up for Blog with friends on impulse because I learned that the theme was going to be "green".

Now for this month "starting fresh" was chosen. Against my better judgment - because I knew I was going to be super busy posting every day throughout the month of April - I thought wouldn't it fit nicely into my A - Z fitness series, so here I am again!

It's safe to say that in January I started fresh.

It all began innocently enough.

I was sitting over at my friend's house, enjoying the King's cake I made and the Prosecco that was my Christmas gift to her, and I said "after today there will be no more sweets and bubbly until I fit back into my jeans. I might even go as far as taking up some sporty activities, I wish there were some good old Aerobics classes."

Doris told me about Vicky, her former neighbor. That lady is originally from Scotland and runs a fitness studio a 10 minutes' drive from here. As far as Doris knew Vicky …

Welcome back to 20 Days of Chill. Today's prompt is #Hashtag, and I thought I'd find out about the top 20 most popular hashtags on Instagram (Source: Huffington Post)

That is pretty generic if not lame! I think the only one I've ever used is #happy, actually it was #100happydays.

Of course I am intrigued now. How do I figure out my own most popular hashtags? Good thing I know people who know stuff. A blogger friend recommended Union Metrics, an app that analyzes just about anything you want to know about your Social Media Accounts! What day and time is best to post, who your biggest fans are, the post with the most likes, the post with the most comments,...

Unfortunately the free part of the tool only teases you, and you end up subscribing...

Surprise, recurring themes / hashtags were most popular. And this is what I paid 29 bucks for? Note: cancel account, get free one, like Iconosquare: